Missing in Action.
It’s a term used in wars by officers who don’t want to face the fact you may be dead.
Not just lying in a trench, or bleeding out in a compound, or your brain splattered across the pavement kind of dead.
The kind of missing that makes family and friends cringe fear.
You could be standing in front of the person you once loved, a smile on their face carved there by your gentle hands and kisses and you could be Missing in Action.
Your smiles gone, memories sporadic and missing, You can’t remember a single word of those long walks along the beach, a warm hand holding yours
The kind of Missing in Action in which those closest to you have you sit and talk for an hour.
Each meeting the same, each question of progress answered with the same phrase “I’m working on it”.
They think that’s a good sign, that you really are working on it, that you have a passion in your heart and all you want is to fuel it.
Give it flame and life, feed it till it overtakes your body, mind and soul, let it show the people who once loved you that you’re okay.
But you can’t.
There’s no flame in your heart, no passion, no driving force keeping you alive till the next day.
You’re not Missing in Action, your reason to live is Missing in Action.
You can’t wake up in the morning and drag yourself out of bed, you can only walk as if a ghost guides your feet.
Sometimes you have to hold your breath because everything around you has that sweet flavor of life, a bitter taste that now bleeds failure.
They tell you it’ll be okay, and you want to believe them.
You want to believe them more than the stories your parents told you before you were tucked into bed.
You beg and plead on your knees to the god you stopped believing in, but that’s all you’ve ever done.
Prayed for anything to make this better, and the only thing that you’ve been gifted with is a bottleful of pills and barrel of a gun that’s so cold it burns.
Hold those in your hands, feel the weight they give. It weighs more to you than the amount of your life.
If you’re lucky you can let them go, but it doesn’t mean your problems are magically solved like your fairy godmother who gives you that dress to send you to the ball, all memories of dirt gone off your skin.
No, you’re still going to remember the words, the actions, the hatred that pushed you that far.
You can’t help it!
You’ve always been like this, slowly losing a battle you’re told you can win.
Why should anyone be surprised you’re Missing in Action?
They’ve stood there and watched as you’ve fallen apart, but instead they turn it into a circus side show so they don’t feel the guilt that taints their skin as they pull your fragile strings, unraveling you like that one doll you always kept, so old that it can’t survive another trip in the washer so it looks brand new.
Missing in Action.
Missing in Action.
Missing in Action!
You’ve been Missing in Action for years.
Your family can’t look you in the eye, that mother who held you so dear can even set her hand upon your shoulder and tell you “Everything’s going to be alright sweetheart”.
So I tell myself, drop the gun, let it slip from my fingers and let the warmth replace the biting cold that swallowed me whole.
Family and friends may never be there for me, I’m Missing in Action, so what should I expect?